Firstly, I should preface this by saying I've never really been one for rhythm games. If it counts, I've played Guitar Hero, but that's about it.
So, I recently played the Rhythm Thief & The Emperor's Treasure demo for the 3DS. I'd heard about this game in a magazine, and it was described as a bit of a Professor Layton but with more rhythm games than puzzles, although puzzles do feature. As a fan of Professor Layton, I was intrigued. Previewers all talked about how amazing it was. So when a demo for the game was released on the 3DS eShop a few days ago, I immediately downloaded it to give it a go. I wanted to give it a go before deciding if I wanted to purchase the game when it's released later this year.
In Rhythm Thief, you play as Raphael, who by night stalks Paris as a heroic and infamous thief called R, who steals paintings and then returns them days later. You join him as he tries to steal the Wristlet of Tiamat, hoping it will help him uncover the truth behind his father's disappearance. Raphael is joined in his adventure by a British, violin-playing girl called Marie, who it seems you will play in some rhythm games as seen in a trailer for the game linked below (it's in Japanese but you can get a feel for the tone and style of the game, as well as see glimpses of some of the games).
I have to say I was very pleasantly surprised. In the demo you get 3 rhythm games to play. The first is a fairly typical style rhythm game, where you follow the moves of your 2 backing dancers, and slide the stylus across the touch screen to match their moves in time. The second sees you trying the sneak into the Louvre, and having to touch 1 of 4 colours as appropriate to hide behind a statue and avoid the guards. The third, which is labelled R04 so seems to be the 4th game in the... game, sees you pressing either the A button or the d-pad to fight off enemies to the left or right.
The first 2 games were easy to get the hang off, especially for a rhythm game novice such as myself, but the third was pleasantly challenging enough. They gave me a good idea of what to expect from the game itself, a good taster of what's to come. The graphics are colourful and simple enough, but beautiful anyway, and charming. You don't see any of the actual story in the demo, but from what I've heard it definately sounds interesting. Rhythm Thief is deifinately a game I'll be keeping an eye on and one I'm sure I'll be picking up when it's released later this year.
Underworld: Awakening is the fourth film in the Underworld series, following the exploits of the vampire Selene (Kate Beckinsale) in an ongoing battle against the Lycans (or werewolves). For a bit of brief background, the first film, Underworld, followed Selene as she met Michael Corvin (Scott Speedman), a human pursued by Lycan Lucian (Michael Sheen) due to his ancestry. She ultimately defied the traditions of her clan, falling in love with Michael as he became the first Hybrid. The second film, Underworld: Evolution, follows Selene and Michael on the move, pursued by an old vampire called Marcus who has recently become a hybrid himself, as he pursues them for something he believes Selene has, and Selene tries to find answers. Underworld: Rise of the Lycans, was the third film in the series, an was a prequel, showing the history of the vampires and Lycans, and how they rose up out of servitude.
Awakening picks up where Evolution left off more or less. In the beginning 'backstory' bit of the film, we are told that humans have become aware of vampires and Lycans and are trying to eradicate them, so Michael and Selene try to flee the city, only to be ambushed by soldiers trying to capture them (due to Michael's unique status as hybrid), which they unfortunately successful in. When the film proper begins, we join Selene as she is mysteriously woken up from cryo-stasis and escapes the lab she was being held in, only to discover that she is now 12 years in the future. She embarks on a journey to find out what has happened and to find Michael, who she believes to be the other escapee from the lab and through whose eyes she can sometimes see through, but who turns out to be a young girl (India Eisley). Selene is joined in her struggles by brave vampire David (Theo James), son of the head of a local vampire coven who have become weak in the years Selene was gone, and human detective Sebastian (Michael Ealy), who rounds off the cast nicely.
Awakening is a great new installment in the series, full of action and drama that has made previous films good. It's been 6 years since we last saw Selene so it was a welcome sight, and it was good to see she was still a bad-ass vampire, although in this film we did see a bit more of her softer side, which was a nice change and showed good evolution of her character. The story for the most part was pretty good too, although some aspects seemed a little tenuous. The CGI was, as usual in the series, pretty top notch.
I did miss seeing Scott Speedman in this film, as although the character of Michael appeared in one or two scenes in the film, his faced was CGI-super-imposed onto a lookalike, and while that CGI was pretty good, I could tell quite obviously that it wasn't Speedman. It has been hinted however, that Speedman would return for a fifth film, so I will keep my fingers crossed. Setting this film so far apart from the others was nice in that it allowed several new characters to be introduced, such as vampire David, who I thought was a very nice addition to the Underworld series, and I hope that we see more of him. The detective was quite a nice addition as well, showing that humans aren't entirely corrupt or useless as was shown in previous films. The girl was quite a nice character and capturing her or protecting her served as pretty good drive for most of the character in the film, but I felt that the revelation of who she was was quite obvious (and so thankfully it wasn't drawn out), and yet it seemed like she might and should've been a bit less useless than she was in the film, although she did get a few kick-ass moments.
I did feel however that the story this time around was lacking a bit of depth that the previous films in the series had, and was a bit too much of a predictable storyline, although this might be due to the fact it is now the fourth installment in the franchise. There wasn't as much mystery and intrigue as there was in previous films, which might be due to all the original vampires etc. now being dead, and so there isn't really any old mythos to build upon.
Overall, I thought the film was a good new entry into the series, and all fans of the series will undoubtedly enjoy it. I wouldn't say it was as good as the first film, but was still very good and I think there could still be at least 1 more film out of the series, which I personally am looking forward to. While it wouldn't win any awards for characters or story, the graphics were good and the story was pretty good. Overall, an immensely enjoyable film any fan of the series should watch, as should any fantasy fan or fan of vampire/werewolves stories (Twilight doesn't count), although it would be best to watch the previous films first to best understand this one.
So, tonight I watched Hugo, a film that has several awards in the recent run of film awards ceremonies, particularly for cinematography and visual effects. And in those respects I have to agree completely that the film deserves them. It's a beautiful film featuring a wonderful blend of top notch visual effects as well as props.
Hugo is a film about a boy called (unsurprisingly) Hugo (Asa Butterfield), who lives in a train station in Paris winding the clocks after his father (Jude Law) passed away, and avoiding the train station inspector (Sacha Baron Cohen) who hates the poor children who hang around the station, capturing all the ones he can and sending them off to the orphanage. When not winding the clocks up and avoiding the inspector, Hugo tinkers with a small metal automaton left to him by his father, trying to get it to work. One night, he tries to steal more parts for his automaton from the little toy shop in the train station but is caught by the owner (Ben Kingsley), who takes the notebook left to Hugo by his father detailing how the automaton should work. Hugo tries to get the notebook back from the owner, and ends up befriending his goddaughter Isabelle (Chloë Moretz), who happens to have the key (literally) to making the automaton work. Together, the two embark on a journey to learn more about each other and the mystery of the automaton.
Overall, the story is quite good, although I did feel that several plot points were opened up and never truly explained, or that it seemed like there was going to be more to certain story aspects than there was, particularly in relation to Hugo's father, who is very present early on in the film, but then is never really mentioned again - I thought there would be more to his story. Ben Kingsley's story however, was entirely unexpected and very charming and heartfelt.
The film is full of charming characters who populate the train station, and whilst they don't really have any relevance to the main plot and only really serve to momentarily break up the main story, they were charming none-the-less. They were all played by quite well known actors, such as Christopher Lee, Ray Winstone, Richard Griffiths and Frances de la Tour (the last two will probably be most well known to Harry Potter fans, as they played Uncle Vernon and Madame Maxime respectively) amongst others, and it was nice to see them in the film, particularly in such small but charming roles. Their little stories were charming, and did make me wonder about the individual stories about people who work in train stations today.
The acting itself was mostly good as well, although considering the cast is made up predominantly of quite big names it isn't overly surprising. Chloe Moretz was good and enjoyable to watch, as I have thought of several of her recent films. Asa Butterfield however, I felt was quite flat and I didn't feel as emotionally engaged in his character even though I was clearly supposed to, although this is quite possibly due to his youth and lack of acting experience compared to the rest of the cast. I'm not a big Sacha Baron Cohen fan, but his performance here was quite tolerable and enjoyable, I must admit. Ben Kingsley however, was the runaway success and stole every scene he was in for me, and the story of his character was by far more moving than Butterfields.
Overall, I thought the film was enjoyable and heartfelt, although I thought the story was quite drawn out and it wasn't what I was expecting from the trailers, as I was expecting much more of an adventure story with mysteries to be solved by the child duo, and instead I got a film with some mystery, but more focusing on the stories of the adults and the history of cinema itself. Nevertheless, it was enjoyable and a treat to watch, but maybe not one I'll be rushing to watch again.
